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Report on FAO/SARPN Workshop on HIV/AIDS and Land
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On 23 and 24 June 2002 the Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN) hosted a workshop to look at the impact of HIV/AIDS on land rights, tenure and use. The workshop looked at three country studies commissioned by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Kenya, Lesotho and South Africa, a similar study undertaken by Oxfam in Malawi, a number of personal testimonies from people in Southern Africa living on the land with HIV/AIDS, and a personal narrative recorded in Uganda. Although HIV/AIDS clearly has major impacts on the livelihoods of people living on the land in Africa there have been few attempts to date to study these impacts.
The aim of the pilot studies presented at this workshop was to:
- Bring issues around HIV/AIDS and land use into the public domain
- Interrogate the methodology used in the pilot studies
- Identify regional perspectives on individual countries
- Synthesise the findings into programmatic recommendations
- Create a bridge from research to policy change.
The central policy issue is how access to land can contribute to the prevention, care and support of HIV/AIDS affected households and the mitigation of impacts. Effective intervention requires identifying the different stakeholders and their roles. If government is involved throughout the process it is likely to give greater priority to policies that deal with the impact of HIV/AIDS and land issues and land based livelihood options. Where government is not involved, stakeholders have to ensure that it recognises the importance of the information.
Methodological issues
There is a need for more extensive quantitative studies and for in depth local studies and case histories to bring out the differences between households. All these studies should incorporate controls to distinguish between impacts attributable to HIV/AIDS and those due to other causes. These studies need to be linked to the development of policies and implementation programmes. For this reason government and other stakeholders need to be drawn into the process. Community structures and local government should be drawn into policy development and implementation.
Designing future studies
Future studies would require greater focus for local implementation and clearer identification of policy implications. Macro studies are also needed that link to future-orientated demographic modelling. Future studies should address geographical, cultural and economic diversity. Teams need a mix of skills including involvement in, or knowledge of, HIV/AIDS and land issues in addition to research skills. Researchers should investigate the potential of coding information to assist in bridging the gap between quantitative and qualitative studies and their research methodology should be appropriate to the scale and objectives of the study. They should be mindful of the sensitive nature of the subject matter, of ways in which the situation of informants may influence results and should look at ways to assist affected households in the course of research work.
Finances will limit the scope of what can be done. The aim should be for ‘good enough’ research. This needs to be defined in terms of what will be effective in influencing policy in specific countries or localities.
Findings
Despite differences in the studies a common picture of a downward spiral leading ultimately to destitution was evident as the disease progressed in households. Broadly, the elements are:
- Loss of income due to loss of a job or the ability to work due to illness or the burden of caring for the ill.
- Depletion of savings and sale of assets to meet medical expenses and to pay for funerals.
- Limitation of livelihood options as a result of chronic illness with land use assuming increased importance as a result
- Limitation of ability to use the land as a result of illness and caring for the ill, sale of livestock, and inability to purchase inputs.
- Vulnerability to loss of land following HIV/AIDS related deaths. This resulted from lack of secure tenure for widows and orphans.
In general better resourced households have a greater chance of recovery from these shocks. Despite its declining importance, land remains a significant resource in the livelihoods of most communities in sub-Saharan Africa and a main vehicle to invest, accumulate wealth and transfer it between generations.
Policy Issues
Livelihoods
- HIV/AIDS narrows livelihood options with land becoming more important.
But is land an effective option? What can be done to make it more effective?
- Assess the possibility of the state providing some of the needs that households are selling off
their assets to meet, for example education and health care.
Land use
- Support the use of agricultural techniques suitable for low labour input households.
- Review current land use and support land use appropriate to different localities.
- Ensure affected households have the necessary resources to implement optimum land use for their situation.
Land tenure and rights
- Consider including a land chapter in the bill of rights.
- Provide for preferential / affirmative land allocation to widows / single women (quota system)
- Legalise leasing to ensure effective use of land taking account of specific local contexts.
- Be aware that laws do not always change local practices.
- Address land tenure and use issues under different land tenure regimes, namely statutory, freehold and customary tenure.
Land policy and administration
- Land policy needs to address HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS policy needs to address the land issue.
- Policy focus should go beyond prevention and treatment to deal with the effects of the pandemic.
- Mainstream HIV/AIDS in land policies and address the issue specifically.
- Land related departments and ministries must adopt an intersectoral approach that can address legal, economic, social and cultural issues and coordinate the provision of services like health care, education, water and sanitation.
- To strengthen legal/ administrative system the following issues need attention:
- Joint ownership of plots guaranteeing equal access
- Amendment of Marriage Acts
- Succession plans prepared before parents die
- Access to legal systems / aid to protect widows, for example an ombudsman, women’s groups, community based organisations
- Policy recommendations need to strengthen government support for basic needs.
- Governments need to recognise that they are losing personnel to the pandemic and take steps to ensure they have the capacity to implement policy.
- Support participation of HIV/AIDS affected / infected in policy processes
- Policy framework needs to address the growing impoverishment of rural people.
- Laws need to be based on the situation on the ground so that administrators do not have to circumvent them to display compassion.
- Emphasis on commercialisation and economic growth should not prejudice subsistence use where alternative livelihood options are limited or non-existent.
- Ask affected people what they need.
- Ensure land reform programmes address the needs of HIV/AIDS affected households.
Gender and age
- Governments need to secure women’s rights to land and deal with the marginalisation of women and women’s issues in the government system.
- Information campaigns need to address the fact that women are frequently blamed for the infection and carry much of the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS.
- Policies and programmes need to address problems women face including:
- land grabbing
- decision making about land use without consultation
- uncertainty about inheritance
- no formal wills and
- polygamous marriages.
- Policies and programmes need to address the issue of women competing with women for land and other resources, for example wives and mother in laws.
- The situation of orphans needs to be investigated and ways devised to protect and support them.
Communities and local support structures
Policies and programmes need to
- Support community based institutions that assist affected households as a way of building social capital, these include churches and voluntary associations.
- Protect the land rights of vulnerable groups, including provision for secure leasing, incentives for guardians to care for orphans without usurping their land rights and innovative coping strategies at community level
- Review local culture and practices with a negative impact on HIV/AIDS affected households and infected individuals and look for ways to address them.
- Build local social capital through supporting local structures that can assist households. This could include public hearings on land for orphans and inputs to assist them with production.
- Look for ways to support micro finance institutions to improve support to affected households for land use
- Provide services that meet the needs of infected people and affected households.
- Any measures introduced need to be publicised through radio and other means so that people know and understand their rights.
What next?
Participants agreed on the need to take the information and knowledge gained from the studies and the workshop back to their countries to try to secure policy interventions and to support each other where possible in achieving this. Methodological problems encountered in these studies will be important for informing any subsequent studies, with the range of methodological issues outlined in this report providing some guidance.
A web site will be set up to provide access to the information and contact between people concerned with HIV/AIDS and land issues.
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